Sorry Not Sorry by Sophie Ranald

Sophie Ranald comes to the blog today with a story of growth, mistakes and finding your voice in

Sorry Not Sorry

So, promised a laugh-out-loud story – this really wasn’t that. Don’t get it twisted: there are funny moments, and some truly ‘wince with sympathy’ moments that we’ve all experienced to some degree or another, but the story touches on some truly and surprisingly deep issues, all along the way with Charlotte’s attempts to find some ‘social’ in her life that seems to be on a never-ending treadmill back and forth to work. We start the story with her best friend who is also her housemate (along with her fiancé) moving out to a house in the ‘burbs’ before their wedding, having left Charlotte in an empty house with not one, but two, new housemates set to arrive in the next few days. Exhausted from working all hours as a PA for a hedge fund company, she’s also a bit depressed and feeling as if she’s not had a social life, or prospects of one with her bestie Maddy now 3 trains and a bus away.

That night, reviewing her options and demolishing ice cream in bed (because -how else?) she finds a podcast about channeling your inner bad girl and finding love and sex. And we’re off. Charlotte’s not a solidly ‘good girl’ just not quite bold and brassy, with a series of challenges to make her take some chances with her personal life and start putting herself out there and herself first – she’s spending more time listening and trying than ever before. Sure, work is there and overwhelming with busy tasks that were needed yesterday, and she’s got the two new housemates – a gorgeous girl and a rather ‘hermit-like’ boy, and some ‘new night’ noises to adjust to, but things are going fairly well.

With being Maddy’s chief bridesmaid falling through with work commitments, and the ‘soon to be’ sister in law swooping in off her broom to ‘take it in hand’ Charlotte is feeling more isolated from Maddy than ever before – while her relationship with new housemate Tansy is developing, slowly as the one with Adam is strangely embittered, she’s got more to worry about than just them. There’s still the podcast and the dishy architect organizing their firm’s upwardly mobile move 2 stories higher. Attractive, sexy and interested in her – Charlotte goes all in and is shattered when she learns he’s not all she thought, very much not. Oh it was twisty and turny, and some of the situations are rather cliched, but the twists at the end, the wedding and Charlotte’s realization that what she thought she wanted and what she truly wanted and needed were different, yet one was in front of her all the time kept the story interesting as Charlotte truly is likable, if a bit naïve, and usually fairly positive.

Is this all there is? I hadn’t had so much as a sniff of a shag for over a year. I scraped the last dregs of Caramel Chew Chew ice cream out of the bottom of the tub with my finger and licked it. It left a sticky smear on my phone’s screen when I typed into Google, “How to find love, sex and happiness.”

Charlotte has always been a good girl.

She sorts her paper from her plastic. She eats her greens (even Spirulina, whatever that is). Boozy brunches with her best friends on the third Sunday of every month are about as bad as she gets.

But being good is getting boring…

Charlotte’s not just stuck in a rut – she’s buried in it up to her chin. The only company she has in bed is the back catalogue of Netflix and falling in love feels like the stuff of fairy tales. So when she stumbles across a popular podcast, Sorry Not Sorry, which challenges women to embrace their inner bad girl, she jumps at the chance to shake things up.

Old Charlotte would never ask for a stranger’s number, go on a blind date or buy lacy lingerie… But New Charlotte is waving goodbye to her comfort zone (with a side order of margaritas). And it turns out that good things happen to bad girls, as Charlotte finally finds her Mr Right – or so she thinks… Is falling in love too tough a challenge even for Charlotte?

Fans of Sophie Kinsella, Mhairi McFarlane and Matt Dunn will love this fabulously feel-good novel that will make you laugh till you cry and leave you living life to the full, margarita in hand!

A copy of this title was provided via Publisher via NetGalley for purpose of honest review. I was not compensated for this review: all conclusions are my own responsibility.

About Sophie Ranald

Sophie Ranald is the youngest of five sisters. She was born in Zimbabwe and lived in South Africa until an acute case of itchy feet brought her to London in her mid-20s.

As an editor for a customer publishing agency, Sophie developed her fiction-writing skills describing holidays to places she’d never visited. In 2011, she decided to disregard all the good advice given to aspiring novelists and attempt to write full-time. After one false start, It Would Be Wrong to Steal My Sister’s Boyfriend (Wouldn’t It?) seemed to write itself.

Sophie also writes for magazines and the web about food, fashion and running. She lives in south-east London with her amazing partner Hopi and Purrs, their adorable little cat.